ATTN: Home Health/Hospice Nurses...several topics! ;o)

[mhowell]

Drive Time

What do you do with all those hours in your car? Listen to your favorite tunes? Talk radio? Audiobooks? Educational materials? Preaching CDs? Talk on the phone? OR Just enjoy the silence?!?!?!?

What does the inside of YOUR car/trunk look like, LOL?!?

Is your mobile office tidy and organized, or is it a heaping mess? Any brave souls willing to share pictures?

I start a new job in a few weeks and would love some ideas about how to set up my SUV!!!

Above & Beyond....Special Touches?!?

How do you go above & beyond to personalize your care? Do you ever take your patients small gifts(coke, candy bar, magazine) or mail them a card through snail mail? Do you sit and chat with them over coffee?

To add to this topic...do you do anything special for the

caregivers of your patients? How do you support them in their role?

Healthy Eating on the go!

Any tips for healthy eating on the go? It's so tempting to just pull through the nearest drive through....how do you fight the urge?

[merlee]

I was a Home Health nurse for many years. Let's see how I would address your questions.

Drive time - - when I wasn't on the phone with the office, a dr's office, or another patient, I just listened to the radio.

Inside - - I was thrilled when we went to laptops - so much neater. I didn't need to keep so many different forms with me, just the things that needed to be signed. My trunk had three bins - one with the extra paperwork, one with some spare dressings and such, and one for dirty things that needed to come back to the office. You must separate clean and dirty.

Above and Beyond - - No gifts to the patients. Not ever. The one exception I ever made was to bring a few fresh peaches to a patient whose daughter did all of his shopping and rarely brought him anything fresh. On my way to his house one day, I passed a farm stand, and bought some stuff for myself, and impulsively gave him 3 peaches. Best decision I made - he was so thrilled. Other than that, I also kept some dollar store clear plastic bins for some of the patients to keep their meds in. I used them especially in homes where there was multi-legged uninvited company. Kept the med bottles clean. This way, when I had to pour their meds, I knew that the bottles were clean. And I used the lid, turned over, as a clean surface when I was pouring the meds. Sit and chat?? A little chatting during the visit, but usually the reason for the visit took up most of the time.

Eating - to each his own. I ate a lot of fast food. Some people brown-bagged it.

Best wishes!!